Audition is perhaps the most developed and acute sense available to infants
at birth. One theory supported by speech and music researchers alike proposes that the
auditory system is biased to salient properties such as pitch and allocates processing of
such stimuli to specialized areas. In the current study, we sought to investigate whether
infants would show similar patterns for processing music and language, as they both
contain predictable changes in pitch. In a previous study, we established that language
processing is lateralized to the left temporal region in the infant brain. We hypothesized
music would be processed in the right temporal area. Although it contains a rule-based
structure somewhat akin to language, it is heavily dependent on fine distinctions in pitch.
Preverbal infants watched a video of animated shapes (visual stimuli) coupled with
either speech (1 of 10 different stories in infant-direct speech) or music (Scriabbin's
Ballade No. 3 in A flat) while hemodynamic activity in bilateral temporal sites was
recording using near-infrared spectroscopy. Results indicated significant right temporal
decreases in HbO2 concentration in comparison with baseline measures during music
trials relative to the left temporal area. These results suggest that even at the preverbal
stage, infants process speech differently than other similarly structured auditory stimuli.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2822 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Fava, Eswen Elizabeth |
| Contributors | Bortfeld, Heather |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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